ATTOM: Profit Margins on Home Sales Drop in Q1

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ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its first-quarter 2025 U.S. Home Sales report, finding that homeowners on average made a 50.2% profit selling single-family homes and condos in the first quarter.

That’s down 3.2 percentage points from Q4 2024 and down 4.8 percentage points year-over-year.

While the national median profit margin for home sales has been declining pretty consistently over the past three years, it still remains well above pre-pandemic levels.

The national median home sale price has been flat the past two quarters at $355,000. However, the median raw profit that sellers made on their homes dropped about 4% from about $124,000 in Q4 2024 to $119,000 in Q1.

“Sellers may not be enjoying quite the same windfall they were a few years ago but by historical standards profits are strong, both in terms of margins and raw dollar value,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “The first quarter also tends to be the weakest of the year, so don’t be surprised to see profits regain ground during the summer months.”

Home sales following foreclosures by banks and other lenders were 1.5% of all home sales nationally in Q1, up slightly from 1.3% in Q4 and Q3. That’s also well below the high of 30.1% hit in 2009.

All-cash transactions were 42% of home sales in Q1, up from 38.3% in Q4. That’s the highest proportion of all-cash sales since 2014.

Homes sold by institutional investors were 6.3%, up from 6.1% in the prior quarter.

And, 8.3% of purchases in the quarter were made using FHA loans, down from 8.6% both in Q4 and in Q1 2024.